The Twitch marathon was my idea, and I did pretty much all of the work to make it happen, including negotiating the rights with both Janson and Bob Ross Inc (not just the rights to the content, but also permission to use Bob's likeness and name in our marketing).

I never got the impression there was anything potentially shady going on, so this was a very sad read for me personally.

Especially annoying: When the marathon was really taking off and the episodes with Steve were shown, viewers really wanted to know what had happened to him, and so did we (we weren't immune to having emotional reactions to the marathon ourselves). We tried really hard to find Steve, both on our own and by sending many emails to both Janson and Bob Ross Inc asking about him. In the end the conversation was shut down by a curt and cryptic response from Bob Ross Inc -- something like "The whereabouts of Steve are best left a mystery".